Ana Vieira (1940-2016) was born in Coimbra and lived in the Island of São Miguel, in the Azores, until she was nineteen years old, a decisive period in the development of her artistic work. Vieira moved to Lisbon to study Painting at the Fine Arts School (1959-1966) where she lived and worked until the end of her life. This is where she met the father of her children, Eduardo Nery (1938-2013), with whom she lived for approximately twenty years. She was a preparatory school teacher, a profession she practiced all her life. Although she was never able to live exclusively from her artistic activity, this gave her creative freedom, without compromising her creativity.
In 1965, Vieira exhibits her collages for the first time in the collective exhibition Exposição Estímulo, at the Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes, Lisbon, and in 1968, the artist had her first solo exhibition at Galeria Quadrante, Lisbon. Here, she showed an ensemble of hollow silhouettes, human figures cut out in wooden panels painted in white.
Although the artist was not part of the great migration flux of the 60's and 70's, supported by the Foundation's scholarships, she had the opportunity to make short trips to Paris where she took the opportunity to go to the cinema, museums, and theatre. Vieira was part of the Artists’ Democratic Movement [Movimento Democrático de Artistas Plásticos] (1974); she attended Ana Hatherly’s Cinema course, at Ar.Co (1975/1976); she did sets and costumes for a few theatre plays in the late 70’s; she participated in The Zero Alternative [Alternativa Zero] (1977); the artist attented the Studio & Forum of Stage Design course (1978), in New York; and she was awarded the following prizes: 1st Azores and Atlantic Biennial (1985), Dyrup/City of Lisbon contest (1st phase) with Architect Victor Mestre (1986/87); and AICA (1991).
Vieira was the object of three anthological exhibitions: Ana Vieira (1998/99), Serralves Foundation, Oporto; Shelter Walls [Muros de Abrigo] (2011), Modern Art Centre of the Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon; and Ana Vieira: an Anthology (2017/18), Graça Morais Contemporary Art Centre, Bragança.
Ana Vieira has posthumously been part of some international collective exhibitions, in particular: Women House (2017/18), Monnaie de Paris and Ana Vieira, The Home and the escape (2020), Es Baluard Museu d’Art Contemporani of Palma.
The work of Ana Vieira is represented in private and public collections, such as: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Serralves Foundation, Berardo Collection, Altice Portugal Foundation and Musée de Design et d’Arts Appliqués Contemporains de Lausanne.
Sofia Gomes
